I spent the evening tying flies.
Actually that was a bit of a fib, I spent a couple of hours stocktaking my fly box and then amalgamated good flies from other boxes into the one I carry the most. This involved taking some old favorites like my Scruffy Kelvin Olive and some miscellaneous paraloops and picking the best ones while discarding the rest. It improves my fly selection and more importantly lowers the average size of fly.
Obviously my fly box looks like a jumble of shite mixed up with some insane tailors box however now that dusk action has properly hit us I need to make sure I can actually see the fly on the water. This means tiny easy to spot flies as well as a selection of nymphs which is another reason I did not get out this evening.
I spent a while tying up a dozen light weight nymphs, you see in my box I have a fair few weighted nymphs however what I do not have is some lightweight nymphs for when the trout are taking them just under the surface. In times like that what you do is gink (or other brand of floatant) up your leader to maybe a half foot of the nymph and then cast out, with a bit of luck your nymph will travel along just an inch or so under the surface.
I was talking to Jim last night about the season on the Kelvin, it has not been bad however it has not been great either. We think the effects of the late spring are still being felt as the trout are not responding at dusk in the “classic” way. Basically even though there appears to be fly life around the trout just do not seem to be responding, even to nymphs.
I would be interested in hearing what you guys think of this season so far?
I live on the banks of the Glazert and have been fishing and watching the same stretch for years, and this year has been dire. I have yet to see a trout rise, in fact I have not seen any sign of fish life on the part of the river I look at every day. There is plenty of fly and insect life in and around the water, just no sign of fish.
Your flies look fine to me and I’m fairly sure the trout don’t do quality control.
I think one of the problems is we expect to see the same thing we have seen in the past, when it doesn’t happen we assume something is wrong. Out on the North Esk there was no evening rise last night however the morning and afternoon was alive with feeding trout, come the evening it was dead again?!
I’m experiencing the same thing here in Calgary before the floods. Plenty being caught during the day but the evenings… Dead.